The Big Guy/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: The strongest, most proficient in physical combat and often the largest of the Five-Man Band.

  • Straight: Biggs is an expert in most forms of martial arts and has the build of a bodybuilder.
  • Exaggerated: Biggs is the size of a house.
    • Beyond The Impossible: You know how we have the expression "knee-high to a grasshopper"? The Kaiju has the expression "knee-high to Biggs".
  • Justified: Grant is from a race of naturally strong individuals.
    • Hiro, Lance, Brian and Chica have gotten sick of getting trounced by superior numbers, so they decide to put Biggs on the team.
  • Inverted: The Brute
    • Alternatively, the Cute Bruiser who packs a king-sized punch into a pint-sized package.
    • Despite being the physically largest, Brian is the weakest among his team.
  • Subverted: Biggs's physical size is far disproportionate to his strength...
    • Biggs, though tall and fat, is weak...
  • Double Subverted: That is, until he reveals his size-changing power.
  • Parodied: Biggs is so big and strong that he causes far more property damage than the team would like.
  • Deconstructed: Biggs's physical strength and durability is not what it seems, for it hides the fact that he is actually getting hurt by the enemy. It takes its toll on him and then, just when they need him most, he dies.
    • Living with the downsides of being The Big Guy such as the guilt of regularly commiting murder with his bare hands, never finding a love interest who doesn't find him terrifying, and simply being regarded as less important than The Hero or The Lancer by everyone reduces Biggs to a broken miserable shell of man.
  • Reconstructed: Instead of dying, Biggs fights through the pain, leading the heroes to gain victory, and dies peacefully and happily after.
    • Biggs learns that the answer isn't to always try to be a One-Man Army and that receiving medical attention or asking for help from others isn't a sign of weakness. With The Power of Friendship on his side, his power is unparalleled.
    • Arguably The Tank is a reconstruction. Instead of being the guy who "takes care of fighting" on a team where everyone can fight, only to be undone by Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards, The Big Guy finds a niche that benefits the team as a whole.
  • Zig Zagged: Due to liberal use of The Worf Effect and Worf Had the Flu, the audience can never ascertain whether or not Biggs is pulling his weight.
  • Averted: The "Four Man Band" lacks this type of member.
  • Enforced: "The audience likes Five Man Bands. Write in a Big Guy."
  • Lampshaded: "I'm Biggs "Large'n'Charge!" Mitchelson!"
  • Invoked: Biggs spends most of his youth bodybuilding so he can join a hero team.
    • In searching for an addition to their team, the Five-Man Band search for someone absurdly strong, realizing that physical strength is where the team is most lacking.
  • Defied: Biggs's first day on the job ends when he gets himself paralyzed for life by overexerting himself.
  • Discussed: "You know how every team has a guy on it that looks like a bodybuilder? Why can't we get one of those guys?"
  • Conversed: "You can't miss him. He's the giant."

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